


trembling lips and carburetor thighs

by nagia



Category: Green Lantern: The Animated Series
Genre: F/M, actually not a tragedy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:43:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagia/pseuds/nagia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p> Aya’s crew have their quirks, OR, the one where Hal Jordan walks in on Razer inspecting Aya’s engine.  (Eventual NSFW/NC-17 content)</p>
            </blockquote>





	trembling lips and carburetor thighs

There is very little to do on a small ship during its nightcycle.  The organic crew all have to sleep at some point, and it’s easiest on them all to let Aya — who does not sleep — stand watch throughout their recuperative time.  They each awaken at some point and keep her company, but there’s always a period where their sleep cycles overlap.

To be truthful, Aya enjoys the quiet.  It gives her time to research.  She pulls in data from every library available, reviews it all at her leisure.

Tonight, she reviews information on modesty.  It’s the latest in a series of inquiries into inconsistent behavior.

Kilowog’s culture seemed to place great value on combat readiness; to be out of armor is to feel undressed.  She supposes that her choice of uniform looks enough like armor that he sees little problem.

The complications she encounters trying to determine the prevailing opinions of Hal Jordan’s culture might possibly explain just why Hal Jordan ignores regulations so frequently.  Humans cannot seem to adhere to any one standard on any point — some cultures permit much skin to show, others very little.  Still others show a moderate amount of skin, but outlaw the visible display of certain body-parts.  Many cultures vary acceptable behavior by season and location.

At last she finds the cultural norms for the United States and blinks, evaluates.  Hal Jordan’s behavior is inconsistent with how humans frequently react to breach of modesty.

(She remembers: he used to call her pretty, before she created her body.  He doesn’t anymore.  Another inconsistency.  And though she does not hinge her value on affirmation of her appearance, she wonders if his reaction is implied disapproval of her independence.)

Razer’s people are the most modest of all, with the exception of a few Earth cultures.  Most records indicate that they regard modesty as an extension of privacy.

That starts an entirely new sequence of queries.  As with modesty, the human definitions of privacy are many and varied, an amalgamated jumble that makes little logical sense and seems to amount to guesswork.  Razer’s people take an opposite view: anything unknown is potentially private.

How strange, that Kilowog’s cultural norms should be moderate in comparison with Hal Jordan and Razer, when of the three personalities, Hal is the one who must mediate.

#

Razer takes the longest watch.  He claims he does not need as much sleep as the others.  Many nights, he looks more intently at her than he does the sensors at his station.

Tonight is one such night.  He holds a small cup of coffee in one hand and is watching her rather than the readouts.  Every now and then the Interceptor’s interface pings and he looks down, but then he looks back at her.

So Aya meets his eyes.  "Is there something you wish to discuss?"

"You seem preoccupied."

She wonders how he can tell.  "I have been reseaching modesty and privacy across organic cultures."

"Modesty and privacy," he says, tone dry. But his eyes have narrowed slightly.

Fascinating contradiction: Razer’s voice indicates interest and mild amusement, but his expression is wary.

"There is much I do not understand about organic species," she says, “that I would like to."

#

"For your information," she says later, “I rarely devote more than fifteen percent processing capacity to any one topic at a time.  I am always mentally occupied."

He arches his eyes.  The dark lines of his markings blur the expression until it looks as though he has crooked one black outline in an inquisitive expression.

#

After modesty and privacy, she discovers sex.

That is inaccurate.  She has always been aware of sexual intercourse.  But it has been a low-level familiarity.  She understood the denotations of various words relating to sexual intercourse without understanding the complex social structures organic cultures complicate it with.

Human sexual mores seem highly illogical to her.  Self-contradictory and often based in shame or social dominance.  It is difficult to imagine finding such experiences pleasant, even though she knows physical pleasure is the defining trait of recreational sexual encounters.

No matter how many libraries Aya downloads, she never sees more than oblique references to how Razer’s native culture views sexual activity.  It is apparently something of which they do not write.  Or perhaps those writings have simply never been collected in offworld libraries.

#

Her crew all have quirks.  Kilowog and Hal Jordan don’t like to see each other’s food; while Razer has no negative reactions to seeing their food, he dislikes watching their eating processes.  Hal Jordan “flirts" with every female-bodied (or, in one case, female-bodied but male-minded, which is an incident to process another day) being he encounters.  Kilowog prefers hammer constructs and silence; Hal Jordan likes baseball bats and she often hears him humming under his breath.

Razer likes whips, the whir of machinery, and to touch her.

It’s not just her physical body he likes to touch — though he does like to stay in contact with her when they’re “on shore" as Hal Jordan calls it — but the Interceptor as well.  When he moves through the ship, he lets his shoulders brush the walls, or trails a hand along them.  The metal does not feel it, precisely, but her sensors inform her.

Every time he leaves one room for another, she must devote a background process to identifying how he touches her and what his touch might mean.

#

"It’s private," he says.

Aya is beginning to think that word summarizes his culture.  She does not say so.  Instead, she requests an elaboration by saying, “On earth, that understanding of privacy seems to be shame based."

"It’s not about shame," he says, quickly. Then he shakes his head.  "I’m not sure I can explain it to someone without the…"

Necessary components, a part of her finishes for him.  (This thought process is incorrect.  She terminates it.)  

"The life experience," he says at last.  "You have to have lived it.  We’re not… we’re not easy to just talk about."

Or perhaps they are simply not talkative.

"It is your culture," she says.  "I was merely curious."

"Why are we even talking about this anyway?"  He really means: Why did I answer these questions, but she doesn’t know, either

#

A few nights later, he pours an amber liquid containing alcohol into his coffee before he seats himself at his station.  His face flushes a darker gray after a few cups.

That night, he’s quiet.

That night, she watches him as much as he watches her.

#

"In-groups," Razer says in a half-distracted voice.  Most of his attention is on the program he is writing, a test attempt at weaponizing his diversion virus.

Briefly, Aya switches her optical input to one of the cameras.  His eyes have narrowed, but the line of his mouth is soft.  His gaze remains focused on the terminal.  This expression is… concentration.

She asks: “Informational boundaries create a sense of unity?"

His irises dart to his right, attention automatically shifting just slightly over his shoulder at her intrusion on his thoughts.

"Yes," he says.

Aya drops the camera and resumes the opitcal input feed of her physical body.  "Do you plan to sabotage firewalls before uploading?"

"Possibly.  It would be better to rewrite ship-to-ship communication protocols to include the virus," he replies.

"By better, you mean more efficient.  What you propose is ethically dubious."

His head jerks.  He turns abruptly, swivelling the chair so he can face her.  His mouth angles downward, eyes wider than his look of concentration but still narrower than his base neutral expression.  She has confused him.

"You wanted a weapon."

"I did," she says, and smiles.  After a moment, his mouth softens into an upward curve, but his smile is uncertain.  She almost regrets her reminder about ethics.

#

Aya does not precisely pity Guy Gardner.  But she sees the bond between herself and the other Green Lanterns of her crew.  She sees the camraderie between Hal Jordan and Kilowog and Razer.  She sees the fondly exasperated tolerance tempered by new respect of Selaak for Hal Jordan.  

She also sees that Guy Gardner experiences none of this.  She regrets that for him.

(She does not include the attachment between herself and Razer.  Whether Guy Gardner shares this with anyone else is difficult to determine and of no real concern to her.)

#

"Please explain how modesty is an extension of privacy."

Razer looks up from the broken PDA (a piece of Earth technology Guy Gardner brought him out of curiosity and perhaps as some sort of challenge — Can you wire one of these to explode? — and Razer had curled his lips to show his teeth but taken the device).

"The right to see more of another person than they show everyone else must be earned."

"And how does one earn this right?"

He shifts his gaze fully to her.  Despite the intangibility of a glance, she feels the full weight of his concentration.  She does not look away.

#

Guy Gardner raises an eyebrow at the screen.  "You know, I’d imagine space pirates would be harder to deal with.  Didn’t think a hail from some Green Lanterns would make them —"

Hal Jordan says, very smoothly and with a touch of pride, “That’s Razer for you.  Good work, Razer."

The pirate ship’s emergency shuttles engage, but do not leave the Interceptor’s visual range.

Kilowog laughs.  "Your little diversion virus grew some teeth, kid."

"Yes," Razer says.  "Aya and I weaponized it."

"Razer did most of the programming.  He has doubled the complexity.  It far outclasses most cyberwafare suites used by ships in this galaxy."

Guy Gardner looks between them.  "Wait, you sent them a virus? In that comm hail?"

"It is based on a diversionary program Razer wrote during the Red Lantern War."  Aya smiles.  She understands it perfectly now, but she remembers the sheer confusion, the data overload and the disconnect.  She also remembers trawling through the code and marvelling at how clean something that had caused such a glut of data had been.

"Uh huh.  What’s it do?"

"This version trips false system critical alarms and disables the emergency shuttles," she tells him, though four sub-processes analazying the conversation project that she should ignore this line of questioning.  "The previous version used a data overload to trip the alarms, since the Interceptor has no shuttles."

Guy Gardner raises an eyebrow and looks from Razer to Aya a few times.  Aya watches this with the unsettling suspicion that he’s preparing to say something no one on the bridge will appreciate.  When he curls his mouth into an asymmetrical grin, she is certain: he’s about to say something that will baffle her, offend Hal Jordan, and irritate Kilowog.

"Aya, does Razer do terrible, wonderful things to your sensors?"

Three voices shout: “Gardner!"

Kilowog smacks his fist against the instrument panel in front of him, apparently forgetting that Aya feels it through the ship’s sensors. Razer stands, glares, opens his mouth to speak, and finally leaves the bridge.  Simultaneously, Hal Jordan stands up, glaring at Guy Gardner.

"Gardner, I’ve let a lot — and I mean a lot — slide, but that was way out of line.  Aya and Razer are your crewmates, and if you’re going to work on board this ship, I expect you to respect them."

Aya stands as well.  This time she is not baffled.  She looks at Razer’s empty seat.  Kilowog makes eye contact with her.  He gives her a nod and the beginning of a smile.

"If you will excuse me," she tells Hal Jordan and Guy Gardner.  "I need to speak with Razer."

#

Razer makes his way to his quarters without touching the Interceptor.

Aya doesn’t pity Guy Gardner right now.


End file.
